Cowper House

 

  

Head of Cowper House:   Quentin Berriman
Assistant Head of House:  Maxine Randolph
Tel: 01908 682 243

  

Who was William Cowper?
William Cowper was the fourth child of Rev. John Cowper, Chaplain to George II. He was born in Great Berkhamsted; however his older siblings died and his mother Anne died in childbirth when his brother John was born; William was not yet six years old.  He was sent to Dr Pittman’s Boarding School where he was severely bullied for two years until his persecutor was expelled. 

 When he was ten he went to Westminster School where his interest in the Classics was fostered. He left Westminster and was articled to Mr Chapman. He spent much time at his uncle Ashley’s house in Southampton Row with fellow clerk Edward Thurlow – later to become Lord Chancellor – where according to Cowper they spent a great deal of time “constantly employed from morning to night in giggling and making giggle” the daughters of the house. 

Later he was admitted to the Inner Temple and was called to the Bar in 1754. He founded the Nonsense Club, a society of Westminster men who dined weekly and produced ballads – “two or three becoming popular“. 

  

Hayes House

  

Head of Hayes House:  Mat Lee

 Assistant Head of House:  Sue Fenemore
Tel: 01908 682 244

  

Who was Edward Hayes?
Edward Hayes was the Fitzcarraldo of Stony Stratford: an engineer who constructed world-beating, ocean-going steamboats in a factory over fifty miles away from the sea. 

Like some of the teachers in today’s Radcliffe School, Hayes was a Northerner who came to work in Wolverton, building a successful career here and staying on to become an important member of the local community. He is a true local hero and an inspirational figure for those students who are fortunate enough to be in the House which bears his name. 

Edward Hayes was born in Manchester in 1818 and served his engineering apprenticeship in the industrial NorthWest.  In the early 1840s, Hayes was appointed as an engineer in the London & Birmingham Railway’s new locomotive works in Wolverton. 

By the end of the decade, Hayes had left Wolverton Works to set up his own engineering business on London Road in Stony Stratford. His factory, the Watling Works, was built on the site now occupied by the Citroen garage. At first, Hayes produced agricultural equipment and machinery for sale to local farmers. The most successful product of the business was a “portable” steam engine which could be wheeled around the fields to provide power wherever the farmers needed it. This machine was Hayes’ own invention and was especially popular because it needed only one person to operate it, at a time when most agricultural steam engines required two or three workers. 

Hayes branched out into boat-building during the 1860s and quickly earned an international reputation for quality and service. The Watling Works’ order-books bulged with requests for vessels from the governments of Russia, Japan and Egypt.  Hayes supplied high-powered steam launches to the Royal Navy, tugboats to harbour boards and steam yachts to wealthy aristocrats. 

As the nearest tidal water was in the Thames estuary, over fifty miles away, Hayes’ boat-building successes are rather surprising…and there wasn’t even any access to water in his Stony Stratford boatyard!  Completed vessels had to be mounted on a trailer and towed along the High Street to the wharf in Old Stratford.  Here, the boats were launched on to the canal and prepared for the journey to London and the sea. The boats would be stripped of their masts, funnels and superstructure so that they would fit under the bridges when they were towed South down the Grand Union Canal.  Those vessels that were too big to float in the canal would be dismantled into several separate sections which were loaded on to barges: they would then be reassembled in graving docks when they reached the Thames, ready to sail the oceans of the world. 

Edward Hayes understood the value of education: for some years he combined his work at the boatyard with a teaching job at the British & Foreign Bible Society School in Stony Stratford. He lived at a time when the state offered only minimal teaching to ordinary children so he developed a highly effective training scheme for his Watling Works apprentices.  Some idea of the effectiveness of Hayes’ educational programme can be gained from the later careers of his Stony Stratford protégés: in 1868, Hayes’ former apprentice Osborne Reynolds was appointed by the University of Manchester as Professor of Engineering (when he was only 26!); another apprentice went on to the Belfast shipyard of Harland & Wolff, where he worked as one of the principal designers of their most famous ship – the Titanic. 

Edward Hayes died in 1877 but his son, also named Edward Hayes, carried on the work of the firm.  Edward Hayes junior died in 1917 and production at the yard ceased in 1925.  Two of the company’s British boats have survived into the twenty-first century: the Thames tug Pat (built in 1923) is on display in the Milton Keynes Museum, Stacey Hill, while the Ship Canal tug Manchester (built in 1874) can be seen at the Ellesmere Port Boat Museum, Merseyside. 

There are many reasons to celebrate the life of Edward Hayes.  His boat-building successes, miles from the sea, remind us that, with the right attitude, difficulties can be overcome and the seemingly impossible can be achieved.  We admire his resourcefulness and his powers of invention.  We respect his belief in education and his care for the members our local community.  He is an inspiration to all of us in Hayes House. 

  

McConnell House

  

  

Head of McConnell House:  Julie France
Assistant Head of House:  Elaine Sullivan
Tel: 01908 682 275

 

Who was James McConnell?
McConnell was locomotive superintendent of the LNWR’s Southern Division at Wolverton from 1846 to 1861. He started work at Wolverton on 15 February 1847 on a salary of £700 per annum. He gradually replaced the stock of undersized locomotives inherited from Edward Bury by locomotives better suited to the loads and schedules of the time. He made his reputation with the Bloomers, 2-2-2 passenger machines with 7ft driving wheels which appeared in 1851 and were considered one of the finest locomotive classes of the time. He was a proponent of big boilers, and he experimented with a smokebox steam drum that can be regarded as an early form of superheater whose effect, if any, would have been felt only at high speeds. 

  

Lee House

  

  

Head of Lee House:  Gary Martindale

Assistant Head of House:  Belinda Moore

Tel: 01908 682 242

 Jennie Lee was born Janet Lee in Lochgelly, in Fife, Scotland on 3 November 1904. The daughter of a miner (who later gave up work in the mines to run a hotel), she inherited her father’s socialist inclinations, and like him joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP).  In her childhood she met socialist leaders such as James Maxton (who would have a profound influence on her) and David Kirkwood. She opposed the UK’s involvement in the First World War, and hoped to attend university, but her parents found they were unable to afford the fees involved. She managed to secure support from the Carnegie Trust which allowed her to attend the University of Edinburgh.  

At university she became further politically involved, joining the Labour Club there, and taking part in the campaign to have Bertrand Russell elected as University Rector. During the general strike Lee returned home to assist the striking miners, even donating a bursary she was receiving to her parents to tide them over. She graduated from university and worked as a teacher in Cowdenbeath before being adopted as the ILP candidate for the North Lanarkshire constituency, which she won at a 1929 by-election, becoming the youngest member of the House of Commons. However, in the 1931 general election she lost her seat in parliament.  In 1933, Lee married the left-wing Welsh Labour MP Aneurin Bevan, with whom she remained until his death in 1960.  

She later returned to the Labour Party from the ILP, and at the 1945 general election she was once again elected to the Commons, this time to represent the Cannock constituency in Staffordshire. She was appointed arts minister in the Harold Wilson government of 1964 and played a key role in the formation of the Open University, an act described by Wilson as the greatest of his time in government. Lee renewed the charter of the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1967 which saw an expansion of its work in the regions as well of the creation of the new arts institutions at London’s South Bank Centre. She also introduced the only UK White Paper for the Arts and following the 1967 reshuffle was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science after two years as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State.  

Lee was defeated at the 1970 election in Cannock by Patrick Cormack and she retired from frontline politics when she was made Baroness Lee of Asheridge, of the City of Westminster.  She died in 1988 from natural causes at the age of 83.  Jennie Lee bequeathed her personal papers to the Open University. They are preserved in the Open University Archive.     

In 2005, the Student’s Association of the newly created Adam Smith College in Kirkcaldy, Fife refused to name themselves after Adam Smith, and instead chose the name Jennie Lee Student’s Association. The Association claimed Adam Smith is synonymous with “exploitation and greed” and stated “Jennie Lee would be an excellent role model for the students because of the courage and conviction she showed in achieving the aims she believed passionately in”.